Innovating new Care Models in Community Hospitals

Contributed by Tee Shi Yun

Ever wondered how the future of Community Hospital care in Singapore looks like?

Over a series of four workshops, the MOHT Community Hospital of the Future team has co-created ground up solutions in an attempt to address the most urgent challenge faced in the healthcare system – acute hospital bed crunch.

Photograph 1: Participants of Workshop 2 at NUS SFAH

Photograph 2: Judges, participants and facilitators in Workshop 4 at YMCA Metropolitan

The Community Hospital of the Future series of workshops brought together close to 70 senior clinical and administrative leaders across all community hospitals, acute hospitals, and healthcare clusters in Singapore, as well as MOH, to ideate and align on the key service delivery pain points faced by community hospitals. With the pain points identified, community hospitals can then focus on delivering more efficient care to a higher acuity patient segment.

Photograph 3: Pain points distilled during workshop sessions.

Photograph 4: Representatives from each team sharing their experiences, ranking priority, and impact for the pain points.

Participants also had the exclusive opportunity to learn from healthcare leaders on the direction of future community hospital care models and the roles each group of stakeholders could play in. The leaders articulated four key themes: Hospital in the community, Community hospitals (CH) as a point of entry into the acute health system, Early transfer pathways to CH and out of CH, and Ecosystems of care.

Photograph 5: Fireside chat with (from left) A/Prof Jason Phua, Prof Lee Chien Earn, A/Prof Chua Hong Choon, Prof Tan Chorh Chuan, Mr Lim Cher Wee, Dr Goh Khien Teik, Mr Lee Chew Chiat (Moderator)

Building on these learnings, the participants were grouped into 10 acute hospital – community hospital teams to brainstorm for solutions across three critical chokepoints: (1) direct admissions from A&E and the community, (2) seamless transfers between acute hospitals and community hospitals, and (3) the implementation of early supported discharge programmes.

Photograph 6: Participants during the brainstorming sessions.

Sponsors from various MOH divisions, MOH Health Innovation (MHI) Fund, and the Agency for Integrated Care (AIC) provided insightful feedback to the teams at the workshop.

Photograph 7: Team 5 sharing their idea with MHI and MOH representatives.

Each team then focused on refining their proposals over the next two weeks, culminating in Pitch Day. Judging panel A/Prof Jason Phua, Prof Lee Chien Earn and A/Prof Chua Hong Choon provided encouragement and feedback to each team as they went through a 10-minute rapid presentation and Q&A.

Participants were also given the opportunity to vote for their favourite ideas. Congratulations to the teams that have won “Healthcare’s Trailblazer”, “Pitch Perfect”, “Mastermind of Care” and “Care model Visionary” Awards!

Photograph 8: Winning Teams (from Top Left) Team 2- “Healthcare’s Trailblazer”, Team 8- “Pitch Perfect”, Team 4- “Mastermind of Care” & Team 7- “Care model Visionary” Awards.

Deputy Director General of Healthcare (Health Services Division) A/Prof Dan Yock Young, and DDGH(HRG) A/Prof Raymond Chua were in attendance and provided strong support for the initiative.

Photograph 9: DDGH Adj A/Prof Raymond Chua and DDGH A/Prof Dan Yock Young delivering the opening & closing speeches.

Impact and Application:
The MOHT team is working alongside the project teams to sharpen their proposals and prepare for implementation within an MOH sanctioned data, regulation, and financing sandbox in a phased approach. We are also working towards establishing a collaborative platform to enable the exchange of ideas, resources, and best practices, with the aim to amplify the impact of these innovations.

Photograph 10: Participants during networking and lunch

The journey towards shaping the future of community hospital care has just begun. These workshops have served as the catalyst in enabling meaningful cross-cluster activities, facilitating collaborative efforts of various stakeholders with a common goal to make a positive impact to transform and innovate Singapore’s healthcare landscape. Stay tuned for exciting developments and progress towards early 2024!

Photograph 11: CHoF team with Deloitte partners

Photograph 11: CHoF team with Deloitte partners

We would not have been able to do this without our partners- Deloitte Consulting, who helped in planning and facilitating the workshop and the great team at MOHT.

To find out more about what was discussed at the CHoF workshop, contact the team at chof@moht.com.sg!